


Ashes

by Issay



Series: One-shot collection [7]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Dealing With Loss, F/M, Future Fic, Grief/Mourning, Growing Up, Life after Voldemort, Not Epilogue Compliant, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, Rare Pairings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-23
Updated: 2017-03-23
Packaged: 2018-10-09 18:52:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10418811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Issay/pseuds/Issay
Summary: When the dust settles – Hogwarts is safe, Voldemort is dead, Death Eaters are in Azkaban and the loss of life is just unimaginable – Harry and Hermione return to Grimmauld because they have nowhere else to go.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Good gods, I'm so behind on this project...

When the dust settles – Hogwarts is safe, Voldemort is dead, Death Eaters are in Azkaban and the loss of life is just unimaginable – Harry and Hermione return to Grimmauld because they have nowhere else to go.

“I guess this is home now,” says Harry quietly, looking around. Interior of the house was badly damaged by the Death Eaters and they’re too tired to do anything about it now. They find what was left of Kreacher in the kitchen, Hermione vanishes the torn, half-decayed body with a movement of her wand. Her hands are still dirty with blood and soot, Harry notices. She doesn’t look like she cares.

Harry finds a still usable bedroom on the third floor and when he’s repairing broken windows and torn mattress, Hermione almost automatically casts their strongest protection spells around the house in a set of well-trained, almost unconscious movements.

They don’t even shed their clothes before curling around one another on the bed and fall into deep sleep of mourning and exhaustion, the stench of the battle still around them like a cocoon.

*

“Do you want it?” asks Harry after two weeks of dodging reporters, well-wishers and old friends. “Grimmauld. Do you want it?”

Hermione blinks and stops sorting through the bag with groceries bought in a Muggle shop.

“What do you mean?”

He looks around – the kitchen is as dark and shabby as it always was but at least they got rid of the stench of death and fixed everything Death Eaters destroyed. And there was quite a lot of that. Harry shrugs.

“I can’t stay here, ‘Mione. I know it was Sirius’ home but he hated it anyway. There’s a house in Godric’s Hollow so I figured…”

“Yes, Harry.” She smiles and this time, for the first time in days, the smile actually reaches her eyes. “I’d be honored.”

So three days later Hermione buys Grimmauld for a knut and a kiss, dutifully pressed to Harry’s cheek in the presence of two Gringotts goblins (after a lot of apologizing for the dragon mess, obviously. Hermione thinks that goblins forgave them only because they’re afraid to lose The Savior’s business). A day after that she casts Fidelius on Harry’s new property, a pretty little cottage not far from the original Potter house. He does the same thing for her and once again only two people in the world knows where 12 Grimmauld Place is. When he leaves to unpack, Hermione is completely alone in the huge townhouse.

“A Mudblood owning the Black ancestral home,” she says to herself out loud. “Sirius would appreciate the irony.”

One of the portraits on the second floor hisses at that and she laughs, the sound echoing and returning to her. The portraits are the first to go, she burns them in the bushy backyard, safely hidden from prying eyes. Most of the original furniture is treated with re-varnishing spells, Hermione changes colors and factures until she gets things much brighter yet still classy. Ancient carpets give way to beautiful wooden floors. Dark and dirty wallpapers disappear with a few moves of her wand and end their long, miserable service in the fire. There are spells for painting walls, of course. Hermione uses them and experiments with colors, checks what fits with the furniture, with her mood, with her fancy.

With time, she’ll add more Muggle accessories but for now she’s happy with the outcome.

*

“I don’t want to go there,” she mutters softly, staring at the fireplace. Harry winces slightly and reaches to take her hand.

“We haven’t been there since…Since…”

“Since Bill and Fleur’s wedding,” Hermione sighs. “I know. And it’s been three months since we saw them, we have to go. But I don’t want to.”

As far as she knows, Harry’s been keeping the same hermit-like lifestyle she did: groceries in the Muggle world, short escapades to the wizarding world under Chameleon or Polyjuice. Turns out, being heroes isn’t that much different from being Undesirables: everyone wants a piece of them anyway.

“I’ve seen Ginny two weeks ago,” Harry admits quietly. Somewhere deeper in the house a clock is ticking, they can hear it in the long moments of silence. They’re already late, she knows. She doesn’t really care. “She said that the worst is pretty much over.”

Hermione shakes her head, tightly braided hair moving with the force of it.

“Do you really think there is such a thing as the worst of grief?”

Harry doesn’t answer, he just squeezes her hand and gets up from the sofa, pulling Hermione with him.

“We’ve faced Voldemort, ‘Mione. We can face Molly Weasley.”

Hermione doesn’t tell him that she would face an army of Death Eaters rather than go to the Burrow. She simply allows him to pull her into the fireplace and holds him tightly as the world spins and turns in the green flames around them.

 

It’s as bad as she had feared. Molly bursts out crying at the mere sight of them, Arthur almost immediately by her side, the deep lines of his face and dark shadows under his eyes telling them a story they didn’t want to know. Harry and Hermione are still holding hands as Mr Weasley whispers sweet, soothing things into his wife’s ear and pulls her out of the living room, shooting them an apologetic look.

Harry exhales loudly. Hermione squeezes his hand in his and fights the instinct to turn on her heel and pull him back into the safety of quiet, empty Grimmauld Place.

“Come on, let’s find Ron and Ginny,” she mutters encouragingly and leads him towards the staircase. They find Ginny on one of the sofas. At least she’s not crying, thinks Hermione, watching the younger witch almost strangle Harry and then fighting for breath herself.

“Mum’s crying?” Ginny asks and sighs when she receives confirmation. “Sorry. She’s been having good and bad days, today’s bad, I guess.”

“We can come back sometime later,” offers Harry and Hermione almost smiles at his naivety. Time won’t heal that particular wound. Ginny shakes her head.

“No, she wouldn’t forgive herself, this dinner was everything she was talking about the whole week. Come on, let’s give her a moment. George and Ron are in the yard.”

“Where are the others?” Hermione asks politely, not really interested but asking anyway as they cross the familiar-unfamiliar corridors of the Burrow to reach the garden. Ginny shrugs.

“Charlie with his dragons, Bill with his wife. Percy will drop by later, he’s working overtime.”

“Still in the Ministry?”

“Yeah, he’s working on getting every executive order from Voldemort’s rule thrown out. Doing a good job, I’ve heard. I haven’t really had a chance to talk to him about it, he leaves at dawn and comes back late in the evening. But mum’s happy that he lives in the house again.”

“Has to be hard.”

Ginny smiles sadly at Harry’s comment and nods.

“I think it’s the hardest on George. A lot of memories in every corner, you know? He hasn’t been in the shop since the Battle, Lee Jordan’s running it.”

Hermione frowns, deep in thought but doesn’t voice it, ignoring curious glances from both of their friends. Harry looks like he wants to ask but then they’re in the yard and Ron hugs them.

It’s awkward, she thinks.

They had a moment but it was the adrenaline and the ‘screw it, we’re going to die anyway’ atmosphere in the insane air of the end of the world. But now that’s gone and so is the spark. Ron doesn’t look entirely comfortable either even though he has visited her in Grimmauld Place before and they had a lengthy chat about the issue. She smiles at him anyway.

Hermione leaves Harry, Ron and Ginny talking about some quidditch this or that, and moves towards the silhouette sitting on an old, unsafe-looking bench under the apple tree. She sits down next to George and doesn’t say anything because what the fuck can she say? He doesn’t look good. His head is shaven and there’s a shadow of a beard on his face but the dominating feature are his eyes, huge and empty. He looks like he hasn’t slept since the Battle – which, to be honest, he probably hasn’t. His fingers are longer and bonier than before, trembling slightly.

“Move in with me,” she hears herself saying. George looks at her and raises an eyebrow. “Harry gave me Grimmauld and I have no one. It’s empty and I’m scared one day I’ll do something stupid and there won’t be anyone to stop me.”

He nods. She smiles.

(Later Ginny will tell her that George hasn’t said a word since Fred died. Hermione won’t be surprised.)

*

He moves in the next day after the slightly uncomfortable dinner at the Burrow, Hermione winces every time she thinks about Molly’s tear-filled eyes and Arthur’s pale skin, of Ginny’s quiet stoicism and Ron’s newfound strength. Others were surprised when George started packing – well, not all of them, Percy pulled Hermione aside and said that he’s glad his brother leaves the house filled with so many shadows. He offered help. She hugged him. It was, all around, weird.

George moves in and for a day or two it’s like he’s not even there. Sure, Hermione sees a dirty mug in the kitchen sink and hears movement in the bedroom on the second floor, but doesn’t really see him. Still, it’s comforting on some psychological level she doesn’t even want to analyze.

On the third night, when her nightmares got so bad she almost ran to the kitchen, the only room in Grimmauld that has no windows so it’s safer, no Antonin Dolohov coming to get her, no giant hands reaching for her through the broken glass. Hermione curls on one of the uncomfortable chairs, trembling hands clutching mug with hot tea, wand between her fingers. When she hears rustling upstairs and heavy steps on the stairs, she has to remind herself over and over again that she’s safe, it’s only George, she’s safe and they’ve won.  They have. Or have they?

He enters slowly, his steps still noisy and she knows it’s for her benefit, she appreciates, really. She knows how silent he can be, not making a noise being a skill of survival for so long.

“I’m here,” she whispers, not looking him in the eye. “I’m all here.”

George nods and makes himself a cup of tea, sweet scent of Earl Grey filling the air like paranoia, like wariness, like the exhaustion they both share in the small hours of the morning. It’s important that her mind is there and then. Three days after the end of the war Harry wasn’t and almost killed her, he didn’t mean to, she knows, they don’t talk about it but she has essence of dittany and bezoars in every cupboard in every room of this house. She can imagine that the Weasley clan went through something similar.

So he sits down next to her, warmth of his body slowly sipping into her cold bones.

“I look into the mirror and I see him.”

His voice is raspy, long unused. His fingers twitch on the cup they’re so gently holding. She doesn’t say anything because what the hell can she say to him? She lost her parents, she sent them away to avoid this exact hurt and yet she’s hurting so much sometimes she cannot breathe. But they’re alive somewhere, alive and well, and Hermione knows he would kill to have his brother alive and well, even if at the far side of the world.

“Mum couldn’t stop crying for two weeks after the funeral. And every time she looks at me…”

Hermione unwraps her trembling, unsteady fingers from around her own tea and puts them on his forearm instead. Eventually, her tremors subside.

“Every time I close my eyes, I see Bellatrix standing over me,” she says quietly. “We’ll never get rid of the scars, George.”

“No,” he says with a sigh and reaches for her hand to fit his fingers in between hers. “I suppose not.”

“A very wise Muggle once said that if you’re going through hell, you have to keep going.”

“I don’t think it will ever get better.”

Hermione tightens her grip on him and doesn’t say that this is better because four nights ago she was sitting in this very kitchen, on this dark floor that will never lose the feint smell of blood, and considered casting an Avada on herself. She has nothing left – spells on her parents can’t be undone, she knows. She’ll never be anonymous in the wizarding world again but she’ll never leave it either.

But she’ll keep going.

*

Eventually it will get better. Slowly and not without setbacks, with heavy veil of silence on every anniversary and Christmas and birthdays. There will be long and dark nights when they’ll turn on every light in the house and it won’t be enough so Hermione will cast Lumos Maxima as long as it takes to chase the shadows away. There will be days where nothing seems to make sense and nothing is worth the effort. He will never be whole. She will never stop sleeping with her wand under the pillow.

Eventually he’ll reopen the shop with Lee Jordan standing to his left and Hermione Granger to his right. There will be only two things reminding people of the war: life-sized moving statue of Fred Weasley and a line of self-defense and house protection merchandise. Harry and Hermione will help with that one, spending endless hours over plans and notes and feeling alive for the first time in what feels like forever.

Eventually she’ll return to Hogwarts and refuse to flinch seeing places where Fred, Tonks, Remus and so many others died. She’ll take her NEWTs – and she’ll take ALL of them, highest marks, setting a new records for the next generations to beat. Minerva will offer Hermione a teaching position but she’ll politely decline. She’ll ignore missives from the Ministry, too.

“What do you want to do now?” George will ask her one evening, his fingers slipping though her long hair.

“I want to make this world better,” Hermione will answer, eyes clear and bright. “I can’t do that as some glorified PR stunt for the Ministry.”

He’ll nod. A day or two later he’ll hand her brochures from Muggle universities.

“Political science,” he’ll say and she’ll understand.

Eventually, they’ll stop pretending that sleeping isn’t easier when they’re sharing a bed. Then it’ll be more and more and at some point he won’t be able to imagine living without her so he’ll go on one knee and propose in the middle of their small, dark kitchen. And she’ll accept, much to the confusion of their friends and acquaintances – but never their family because Charlie wins twenty galleons and Percy moans for a week that he almost won that wager, couldn’t George wait a month longer? Their wedding will be small and intimate, at dusk in the Burrow’s garden.

“You’ve been a Weasley since you were twelve,” Molly will say when she’ll see Hermione in the wedding robes for the first time. “Welcome home, honey.”

Eventually, Hermione will become the most influential lobbyist in this part of the wizarding world after pushing through legislation on protection of werewolves, on humane treatment of house elves, on equal rights for centaurs. She’ll write a book or two, guest lecture from time to time. But that won’t be her greatest accomplishment. That would be the family they’ve made.

Eventually, Hermione and George will adopt four kids – war orphans, and they’ll be praised for it in the newspapers, much to Hermione’s annoyance. They’ll take shifts standing on watch for nightmares and Death Eaters under the bed, they’ll make hot cocoa in the middle of the night and organize sleepovers for all four of their kids in their own living room, cuddling on soft mattresses and under heavy blankets. Their children will know that crying is not a weakness and that if Daddy sometimes hides his face in Mom’s hair, it’s best to come and give them both a hug. They’ll now that all beings are equal. They’ll know that Slytherins can be brave and Gryffindors can be cruel.

They’ll grow up loved, leaving the nightmare of Voldemort’s war behind.

Eventually.


End file.
